


The Gray Area

by NotEvenThat



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jace and Alec are... kinda the same person, Jace and Alec share consciousness, Jace comforts him, Jace makes weird food in Magnus's kitchen, M/M, Magnus has a flash back, Multi, Panic Attacks, Parabatai Bond, Parabatai Feels, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 06:28:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10634178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotEvenThat/pseuds/NotEvenThat
Summary: Magnus has a panic attack, forcing Jace and Magnus to discuss the boundaries of their relationship, regarding Jace and Alec sharing a soul.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after my previous fic, 'The Oddities of Sharing a Soul' but they can be read completely separately.

It started with a panic attack.

Alec had left early that morning, leaving Magnus and Jace alone in the loft for the first time in a week. Alec was practically living with him now. Every night he stumbled through the door and passed out with Magnus before waking up the next morning and leaving again. Jace normally did the same but for some reason, that Magnus hadn’t cared to ask about, Jace had stayed behind today.

He didn’t mind Jonathan in his loft as much as he imagined he would. He cleaned up after himself almost religiously, even cleaning Magnus’s things when he left them out (much to his annoyance). He was as curious as Alec was about what Magnus’s did during the day: He helped with potions, gathering ingredients, summoning demons. He helped with everything, adding in sly commentary, whereas Alec normally just had questions. He took advantage of Magnus’s plethora of reappearing food and cooked quite regularly. Though, He had the awful habit of throwing weird things into otherwise mundane recipes; Which, either turned out wonderfully or completely disgusting. Overall though, Magnus didn’t mind Jace living with him because it meant that he wasn’t alone.

He would never admit it out loud but Magnus liked having someone live with him. He liked hearing someone up every morning, making coffee and turning on the TV. He liked the mundane routine of Alec and Jace waking up every morning and coming back at night.

Before he met Alec, Magnus would go weeks without talking to anyone. Immortals tended not to talk to each other daily. Tessa, Catarina, Raphael.. Ragnor… They were his family, but they rarely talked more than once a month. When you can live forever, you lose track of time. Magnus would throw up his wards and start working on a spell or potion, only to look up later and realized he’d been working on it for a week. He’d start translating a book and live off old Chinese food for a week, without even realizing it.

He couldn’t do that with Jace and Alec. They came back every morning and every night. When Magnus lost himself in his work, he’d snap out of it when Alec stumbled through the door and wrapped his arms around Magnus’s shoulders. When Magnus worked all night, he’d wake up to Jace, throwing food together in the kitchen.

He hadn't even realized that he was lonely until Jace moved in with him. So.. Magnus liked having Jace live with him but that didn’t mean he stopped rolling his eyes, when he spotted the mess Jonathan was making in his kitchen. “Traditionally, Mangos don’t go with spaghetti.”

“Sweet and savory!” Jace proclaimed loudly, spinning around to show Magnus a clump of mango that absolutely hadn’t been cut right. “You said yourself that that's good. This is for you!”

Magnus openly scoffed, as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the full pot. “I meant like sweet and sour sauce. Fruits don’t go in spaghetti.”

The next few minutes were filled with an argument about tomatoes being a fruit, and whether or not that made it acceptable to put other fruits in spaghetti. Magnus had just opened his mouth to inform Jonathan that he would _not_ be having any of what he made, regardless of if it was all made for him, when Jace cut him off. “Fine! You can starve! You monster! You’ve ruined the culturally creativity of this process.”

Maybe it was because it was early and it caught him off guard but the second Jace said it, he could feel himself starting to panic. Jace was kidding. He knew that. Jace was kidding. He had repeated almost the exact phrase to Jace many times. This is how they were. They insulted each other back and forth but neither of them meant it.

But knowing that didn’t stop the bile from rising in his throat. His heart was pounding hard in his chest. Jace was calling his name but it was far away. He was staring at Magnus and Magnus watched as his hand reached forward, not comprehending that Jace was going to touch him until it happened and Magnus flinched back.

 _Jace isn’t going to hurt me. Jace isn’t going to hurt me._ He repeated it to himself, trying to ground himself to the situation that was happening. _You’re in Brooklyn. This is your loft. They’re long dead. They can’t get you here, even if they wanted too._

It didn’t help. It didn’t help at all. The warm cup in his hand tumbled and Jace caught it, hot coffee splashing across both of them. He knew where he was. He knew that nothing was going to hurt him but suddenly he was standing in Indonesia. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t real. His mother threw him out the door and he landed hard in the warm mud, the sun blazing down on him.

He didn’t mean too. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He didn’t even know what magic was, or that he could do it and he definitely didn’t know how to control it. He had just burnt himself on the fire. They were cooking and his arm brushed against the burning metal. He was a child. He jumped back and blue light bursts from his hands.

He was just a child. He was terrified. He reached for his Mother and the second his hand hit hers, she started screaming. The skin on her arm bubbled like Magnus’s own arm had against the metal. Even when he pulled away, the magic stayed there, blazing with light as it charred her hand.

It was a stupid thing to get upset about. Especially, hundreds of years later.

She threw him outside and stared down at him with terrified eyes and she yelled, "Kau monster! Dimana anakku! Makhluk apa kau?!" _You monster! Where’s my son! What are you?!_

That wasn’t even the worst moment of his childhood. It didn’t even compare to the things that had happened after. It made no sense that that's what he was getting upset about. It didn’t make sense that he was panicking over it. It was stupid. It was so stupid.

“Magnus. You need to breath.” Jace was talking to him again or had he even stopped? He was standing carefully a step away, his hands hovering a few inches away from Magnus, like he wanted to touch him but he knew that it wasn’t a good idea.   

Magnus looked up at him for a few startled seconds before realizing that he was right. He wasn’t breathing. His breath was coming out in quick, panicked gasps for air and his lungs were screaming for oxygen.

“It’s okay. Everything’s alright.” Jace stood next to him, whispering quietly for a few moments before looking into Magnus’s eyes again. “I’m going to touch you, okay?”

Jace had to ask him a few times before Magnus understood. He nodded, shakily, his arms wrapping around himself as he struggled to breath. He flinched again when Jace touched him, but this time Jace didn’t pull away.

His arms wrapped around Magnus, pulling him close to his chest and holding him there, even when Magnus pushed against him in a flash of panic. Magic was sparking from his hands and Magnus watched for a few uncomprehending seconds before realizing that he was burning Jace.

His hands were clinging to Jace's bare skin and the magic in his hands was sparking violently, leaving angry red marks on Jace’s chest. Even though Jace didn’t react, Magnus knew that it hurt.

He pushed at Jace, panicked, trying desperately to stop the magic in his hands. “I’m sorry! I-I’m sorry..” He was panicking all over again and Jace pulled him closer, instead of letting go like Magnus wanted him too. He hurt everyone. His parents. Etta. Jace...

“Magnus! It’s okay! Everything’s okay! Just breath..”

Magnus wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, with Jace holding him tight against his chest as Magnus clung to him and struggled to breath. When Jace finally moved and started pulling Magnus to the couch, he found that his legs were numb and his face was covered in tears, that he hadn’t realized he was crying.

Jace pressed him gently onto the couch and Magnus went bonelessly, expecting Jace to let go of him and sit. He didn’t let go though. He sat next to Magnus and his arms stayed, wrapped around Magnus’s body as he settled into the couch. Their legs were pressed against each other. Magnus’s head was tucked under Jace’s arm and after a second he relaxed and cuddled into the crook of Jace’s neck.

It was weird. It was weird what was happening. Jace and Alec shared part of the same consciousness. That had all been explained to him but Jace and Magnus had never.. Alec and Magnus’s relationship had never strayed into the part of Alec that was Jace too. They had never talked about it, just like they had never talked about just how much Jace saw when Alec and him we’re having sex.  

There was an overlap there, where Jace felt a lot of what Alec felt too, but they had never talked about it and they had never discussed the boundaries, if there were any, that that overlap called for. “Jace.. Is this weird?”

Slowly, Jace pulled away. Not completely. His arms stayed around Magnus and they stayed curled together, but he pulled away a little, putting the smallest bit of space between them. When he spoke, he did so cautiously, in a soft voice that Magnus had rarely heard him use. “It’s not weird for Alec and I.”

He didn’t say anything after that and they fell into an awkward silence for a few seconds. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to say anything else, Magnus looked up at him, “What do you mean? Have you guys talked about it?”

Jace looked down at him and Magnus realized that they were close enough to kiss each other, if they had wanted too. “We haven’t really.. Talked about it. No.” His eyes flickered away, looking to the table in front of them, “Alec just loves you.” He shrugged softly, “So, that means that part of me loves you too. We’ve never talked about it. We just both understand that to be true.”

They sat for a long moment, in which Jace refused to look down at him, and Magnus struggled to think of something to say. “What does that mean for us?” He asked finally. It felt oddly intimate and charged with expectation to use the word ‘us’ but when Magnus realized that, he had already said it.

Jace shrugged again, his eyes never looking away from the window that he had fixated on. “Whatever you want.” After a moment, he looked down at Magnus again, his eyes soft and thoughtful, in a way that reminded Magnus far too much of Alec. “Maybe you should talk to Alec about it. He’s walking back now.” Jace shifted, and Magnus knew that he was going to get up and end the conversation, even though he had barely moved. “Are you okay now?”

It took a second for Magnus to remember how they had gotten there. It seemed like it had been hours ago. “Yeah.. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Alright.” Jace stood up and his arm slid off Magnus, leaving him alone on the couch. “He’ll be here in a couple of minutes.” Jace said softly, turning to walk down the hallway to the guest room that had become his. “He knows.” Jace closed the bedroom door behind him and Magnus watched, not sure if Jace was talking about his panic attack, them cuddling, or all of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, I will be writing the conversation between Magnus and Alec. Hopefully. Comment if you want me too and keep me motivated.


End file.
